Our family loves a good road trip, and this year's adventure to South Dakota was no exception!
Our first day was a driving day and our first non food/gas station stop was at the Green Giant Museum in Blue Earth, MN. It was really cute and definitely worth the stop!
Pulled off at the welcome center for the obligatory sign picture!
We stopped in Mitchell, SD to see the Corn Palace and grab dinner! Unfortunately, during dinner the tornado sirens started going off and the restaurant we were eating at was basically all windows, so we finished up our food and decided to hit the road. Our goal had been to go as far as Chamberlin, SD that day which was still about an hour away from Mitchell. We ended up driving straight through the storm while our phones were going off with tornado warning alerts. Jemma distracted herself with her iPad, I had my eyes covered and Jade watched her Dad confidently navigate the storm.
I was very thankful when the storm passed and we reached our motel in Chamberlin! We wanted to stay at this particular motel because I stayed there as a kid on our family vacation to South Dakota! We had fun recreating pictures and sending them to my mom and dad that night.
The next morning we made a coffee stop at the cutest coffee trailer before reaching our first activity for the day, which was riding the Rushmore Mountain Coaster at Rush Mountain Adventure Park.
Next up was lunch at Subway followed by fun at Rushmore Tramway Adventure Park! We all did a 5 line Zipline Course and rode their Alpine Slide! The girls also did the tubing hill.
Next stop was a visit to Mount Rushmore!
We had dinner at Cruizzer's Pizza in Keystone and headed to check in to our hotel. We passed a cool view point of George Washington's face along the drive.
We loved our hotel so much! We spent the rest of the evening playing pickleball and swimming/hot tub.
We started the next morning driving the Wildlife Loop in Custer State park! We saw so many animals!
We continued exploring Custer State Park by taking the Needles Highway towards Lake Sylvan.
We had a quick picnic lunch before walking the Sylvan Lake Shore Trail. It was so beautiful!
Our next stop was Crazy Horse. Unfortunately there was lightening in the vicinity so we were not allowed to get any closer to the monument at this time. Our hotel offered complimentary milk and cookies in the afternoon, so we headed back there for that!
We headed back to Custer State Park to drive the Iron Mountain Road.
We had dinner at All Aboard Eats and Treats in Hill City and then raced back to Crazy Horse before it closed for the day! We made it just in time for the last bus tour to the base!
The Nutella queen found Nutella Waffles for breakfast the next morning!
We checked out of hour hotel and headed to Bear Country! This was one of our favorite stops of the whole trip! The bears were so cute and very active! We got to see a lot of other animals too!
We had an amazing lunch at JR's BBQ on our way to Spearfish Canyon!
We decided to do the Devil's Bathtub hike, it was just over 3 miles round trip with multiple river crossings. At the end of the trail was a small pool with a natural waterslide which the girls both went down!
From here we headed to Rapid City for dinner and checked into our Airbnb!
The next day was Badlands National Park! Such an amazing place! We hiked the Notch Trail and a few smaller trails in the morning and drove through the parking getting out at pretty much every lookout!
Next stop was souvenir shopping, free water and 5 cent coffee at the famous Wall Drug!
We grabbed Jersey Mike's for dinner, gigantic ice cream cookie sandwiches for dessert and then packed up to leave early the next morning.
We had one final stop before leaving South Dakota, and that was a hot air balloon ride! We had been scheduled to do this a few days prior, but it was cancelled due to unfavorable weather! We were crossing our fingers that it wouldn't get cancelled again and thankfully it didn't! It was an amazing experience, and everyone enjoyed it!
This was the perfect ending to a perfect trip! We decided to power through and drive straight home that day! So thankful and blessed for another family vacation full of wonderful memories.
